There was a squint of madness in the old man’s grin. “That’s right, that’s right. Gonna ask how I found you here?”
“How did you find me here?”
“Tracked you down. Tracked you to Cobbs Creek. Gated ahead to Clay Bank, you weren’t there. Gated back to Cobbs Creek, they told me you hadn’t been gone long. I knew you’d stop here. Never met an offworlder yet who could resist taking in the sights. I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Actually I’m here by chance.”
“Sure you are.” Pouffe’s lips twisted sardonically. “But I would’ve found you anyway. This isn’t the only place I’ve been waiting. Been shunting between four different gates all morning.”
“That must have cost you a lot of money.”
“Yes, that’s the key.” The old man leaned forward, eyebrows rising significantly. “A lot of money. It cost me a lot of money. But I’ve got plenty of it. I’m a rich man, if you get my drift.”
“Not exactly.”
“I’ve seen your commercial. You know, about the magician. The one who can—”
“Wait a minute, that’s not my—”
“—adapt a man to live and breathe underwater. Well, I—”
“Stop. This is nonsense.”
“—want to find him. I understand you can’t tell just anybody. I’ll pay for the information, and I’ll pay well.” He reached across the table to seize the bureaucrat’s hand.
“I don’t have what you want!” The bureaucrat shook away the grasping metal hand and stood. “Even if I knew where he was, I wouldn’t tell you. The man is a fraud. He can’t do any of what he claims.”
“That’s not what you said on television.”
“Shopkeeper Pouffe, take a look out here.” He led the avid old man to the railing. “Take a good look. Imagine what this is going to be like in a few months. No houses, no shelter. Seaweed where the trees are now, and angel sharks feeding in the black water. The marine life here has had millions of years to adapt to this environment. You, on the other hand, are a civilized man with a genome foreign not only to Ocean but to this entire star system. Even if Gregorian could deliver on his wild claims — and I assure you that he cannot — what kind of life could you lead here? What would you eat? How could you expect to survive?”
“Excuse me, sir,” a bull-headed waiter said.
He swept Pouffe’s surrogate aside, placed a hand on the bureaucrat’s back, and shoved. “Hey, what — !” Pouffe cried.
The bureaucrat fell forward. Dizzily he clutched at the railing. The man-bull laughed, and the bureaucrat felt his legs being lifted up behind him. All existence swept sideways, trees wheeling in the sky beneath, sand turning up overfoot. The hands were warm and firm on his ankles. Then, suddenly, they were gone.
Somebody screamed. In a blast of pain the bureaucrat crashed flat on his stomach. His arms were still clenched about the rail. Helplessly he gazed up to see the waiter and Pouffe’s surrogate locked in a hug. They might have been dancing. The man shoved violently, and the telescreen snapped off. It bounced off the edge of the platform. Headless, the machine ducked and spun. The two crashed into the railing. Wood splintered and gave.
They toppled over the edge.
Surrogates, waiters, even human customers, rushed to stare down over the rail. In the crush the bureaucrat was ignored.
Slowly he pulled himself up. His legs and spine ached. One knee trembled. It felt wet. He clutched the rail with both hands and looked down. Long way down to the ground. His assailant lay unmoving atop the broken surrogate. He looked tiny as a doll. The bull mask had fallen away, revealing familiar round features.
It was Veilleur — the false Chu.
The bureaucrat stared. He’s dead, he thought. That could have been me. A metal hand took his elbow and pulled him back. “This way,” Pouffe said quietly. “Before anybody thinks to connect you with him down there.”
He was led to a secluded table back among the leaves.
“You travel in fast company. Can you tell me what that was all about?”
“No,” the bureaucrat said. “I — I know who was behind it, but not the specifics, no.” He took a deep breath. “I can’t stop shuddering,” he said. Then, “I owe you my life, shopkeeper.”
“That’s right, you do. It was all that combat training back when I was a young man. Fuckin’ surrogates are so weak, it’s next to impossible to overpower someone with one. You got to turn their own strength against them.” That smug, self-satisfied smirk floated on the screen. “You know how to repay me.”
The bureaucrat sighed, stared down at his hands on the table. Weak, mortal hands. He gathered himself together. “Look—”
“No, you look! I spent four years in the Caverns — that’s what they call the military brig on Caliban. Do you have any idea what it was like there?”
“Pretty grim, I’d imagine.”
“No, it’s not! That’s the hell of it. It’s all perfectly humane and bland and impersonal. Some snot-nosed tech plugs you into a simple visualization program, hooks up an IV feed and a physical-therapy program so your body don’t rot, and then leaves you imprisoned inside your own skull.
“It’s like a monastery in there, or maybe a nice clean hotel. Nothing to hurt or alarm you. Your emotions are cranked way down low. You’re as comfy as a mouth sucking on a tit. You don’t feel anything but warm, don’t hear nothing but soft, comfortable noises. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can reach you. You can’t escape.
“Four years!
“When you get out, they give you three months’ intensive rehab before you can accept the evidence of your own eyes. Even then, you still have nights when you wake up and don’t believe you exist anymore.
“I came out of that place and went to ground. I swore I’d never again go anywhere I couldn’t go in person. That was a lifetime ago, and I’ve kept that vow right up to this very day. Do you hear what I’m telling you?”
“You’re saying this is important to you.”
“Damn right, it’s important!”
“Is your life important to you? Then give up this childish fantasy. These notions of coral castles and mermaids singing. Shopkeeper, this is the real world. You must make the best of what there is.”
Somewhere far away, a truck horn was honking regularly, insistently. The bureaucrat realized that he had been hearing it for some time. The migration must have cleared the road.
He stood. “I have to leave now.”
When he tried to walk away, Pouffe danced after him. “We haven’t talked money yet! I haven’t told you how much I can pay.”
“Please. This is futile.”
“No, you’ve got to listen to me.” Pouffe was crying now, desperate hot tears running down his rutted face. “You’ve got to listen.”
“Is this man bothering you, sir?” a waiter asked.
The bureaucrat hesitated for a second. Then he nodded, and the waiter turned the surrogate off.
Back on the ground, he could not find the New Born King. The truck was gone. Chu stood on the running board of another, the Lion Heart, leaning on the horn. She stepped down at his approach. “You look odd. Pale.”
“I should,” he said flatly. “One of Gregorian’s people just tried to kill me.”
When he was done telling his story, Chu slammed her fist into her hand, over and over again. “That sonofabitch!” she said. “The fucking nerve of him.” She was genuinely angry.
The bureaucrat was surprised and a little flattered by Chu’s show of emotion. He had never been quite sure that she accepted him, and always suspected she thought of him as merely an offworld buffoon, someone to be tolerated rather than respected. He felt an unexpected glow of gratitude. “I remember you telling me once not to take any of this personally.”